1997 Annual Report

EPIC Celebrates 20th Anniversary

Celebrations of EPIC’s 20th Anniversary are taking place from Kansas to North Carolina! The first was held in North Newton, Kansas, on June 17, 1997, and the second will be held in Boone, North Carolina, January 10, 1998, in conjunction with EPIC’s Annual General Meeting. In Kansas 20 EPIC members and friends gathered for an outdoor picnic and 20th birthday party for EPIC. A highlight of the gathering was a presentation on issues of development in Cambodia by EPIC members Barbara Johnson and Bebing Socorro. Barbara works as Coordinator for Sustainable Development for the American Friends Service Committee with a staff of 60, most of whom are Cambodians. The project is working to protect the mangrove forests of western Cambodia and to empower grass roots development in an area studded with land mines. Barbara spoke of her efforts to guide a participatory process of strategic planning with staff members who may never have held a job before and the difficulty of using $500,000 a year in development assistance without creating dependency.

In Boone, the 20th anniversary celebration will take place at the Annual General Meeting in the home of Margaret and Loren Raymond, 321 Perkins St. Members and friends are invited to the Annual General Meeting starting at 9:00 a.m. to be followed by a luncheon hosted by the Raymonds. The noon celebration will include a cutting of EPIC’s 20th birthday cake.

Article I of EPIC’s By-Laws states as one purpose, “to promote a greater understanding of the problems facing the world community today and of the need to respond to these problems”. As EPIC celebrates 20 years of grassroots action, we highlight in this annual report the international outreach of our organization, from Bosnia to Guatemala and from Cambodia to Honduras, where EPIC is present either directly through its funding or through the passion for peace and justice of EPIC members working with other organizations.

“I, Thomas J. Hughes, a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of New York in the First Judicial District, hereby approve the foregoing certificate of incorporation of the Ecumenical Project for International Cooperation, Inc.” November 15, 1977. Directors: Thomas Cowley, O.P. Penelope T. DeLoca Harriet A. Garzero

Bosnia - Bosnian Children's Art and Writing Project
For the second year EPIC has supported the Children’s Art & Writing Project directed by EPIC member Rachel McKinney. During 1996 Rachel worked with groups of children in three Bosnian communities, totaling 105 children. The focus of her work was art and psychotherapy through art workshops. In 1997, Rachel together with her co-worker Rukija has worked in 9 centers in Central Bosnia with a total of 550 children ages 3 to 16. Her work consists of visiting one to three centers a day, supervising, distributing materials or conducting her own workshops. This year she directed several large art workshops with children brought together from several centers so that the children would have the experience to learning to create together across boundaries of place of origin. These workshops included painting, mask-making, and paper-making. Most of the art supplies they used are the art & craft supplies and books that Rachel was able to gather together when she visited North Carolina last January. She wrote that the children were continuously amazed at the “goodies” she pulls out for art projects. Painting and drawing are still favorite activities. Since April, Rachel and Rukija have dedicated much of their time to a kindergarten they opened in Turbe. Turbe was a front-line village and was destroyed and heavily mined by both the Bosnian and Croatian armies. At ages 4, 5 and 6 these are children of war, and they have known relative peace for only the last 1 1/2 years. Many of these children have problems concentrating and suffer behavior disorders. Rachel reports that, “over the past 6 months we have noticed a remarkable change in the children, they have learned to socialize and play together and are now eager to participate in and are open to new activities. I enjoy spending time with these children and have found myself working there quite a bit .”

Also new in 1997 was Rachel’s photography projects with groups of older kids in several centers. One of these centers is in a refugee camp where the children have lived for five years. The other is a repopulated village whose present population is from Zepa and Srebrenica (the last two “safe” areas to fall during the war). This had been a Serbian village and was destroyed at the beginning of the war. It has been repaired only enough for about 160 people to live in ten houses. The children go out, take pictures of things and places they want to write about, develop their own pictures, and then write stories to go with the photographs.

Honduras - Dr. Jeff Boyer works with Honduran Campesinos
For the past 9 years EPIC member Dr. Jeff Boyer, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Sustainable Development at Appalachian State University, has been working summers in Honduras with campesino (peasant farmer) organizations. Boyer’s work in Honduras began in 1963 when he was a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. His focus is projects in appropriate technology and organizing farmers for more just marketing of their grains. Over the years, EPIC has given numerous Thomas Cowley Scholarships to help support university students who have participated in summer work/study programs led by Jeff. At the EPIC Annual Meeting in January 1997, Jeff reported that the work of the last 9 years had paid off and that the coyotes (middlemen) were no longer able to drain off the profits from the production of these Honduran campesinos. By collectively banning together and implementing a grain fund, producers in six peasant communities had been able to avert many pre-sales of crops in the field to coyotes. However, by December 1997, Boyer reported that the drought brought on by El Niño is testing the limits of the cooperative credit system. “Drought meant crop failure for the first planting this year and families had to turn to the coyotes once again after their grain fund ran out. Middle men vultures love drought and human misery...they profit all the more from it!”

In order to help Jeff document the development of leadership in campesino organizations in Honduras, EPIC is providing Jeff with a grant to defray the cost of recording equipment and in-country travel to do interviews for the writing of a book, in English and Spanish, entitled "The Peasants Speak: The Past, Present and Future of Honduras." One common theme that has emerged is the important motivational influence of the Church and theological beliefs of a spiritual/material liberation. Jeff has thirteen 90 minute taped interviews that will be transcribed from a workshop held earlier this year. He envisions a book for the general public and college students, with clear statements for US policy makers regarding the failed neo-liberal model of structural adjustment in Honduras, and the rollback of agrarian reform and political democracy.

Guatemala - Fundación Agri-Cultura Marcos Orozco
EPIC has truly played the role of midwife for this Maya Foundation dedicated to natural resource conservation and preservation of Maya culture. On July 11, 1997, the Guatemalan government published Ministry Decree # 179-97 by which FUNDAMARCOS was granted authorization to operate as a non-profit Guatemalan foundation. Felipe Tomás who had been working in Oaxaca, Mexico, employed by a Mexican NGO and World Wildlife Federation as Area Coordinator of Eco-Agricultural Training for the Chimalapas Cloud Forest, quit his job and returned to Guatemala to give his full energies to the development of the eco-agriculture and soil and water conservation program of FUNDAMARCOS. In his words, “the baby is now born and someone needs to take care of it.” The foundation’s agricultural work has already been initiated with visits to Kaqchikel and Quiche communities in the Departments of Chimaltenango and El Quiche and the Q’eqchie region of the Department of Baja Verapaz to determine where the combined factors of environmental need and opportunity to work coincide. A grant has been submitted for the initiation of a comprehensive 10 year conservation program to protect the dwindling water supply in the most important and endangered watershed of Guatemala, the Rio Motagua and its headwaters.

Epic’s support to FUNDAMARCOS in 1997 totaled $ 3,532.60. EPIC grants provided essential funds for the official publication of the foundation’s government approval as a Guatemalan foundation, the purchase and authorization of the foundation’s accounting and meeting record books, design of the foundation’s logo, printing of letterhead, and other important logistic requirements of starting a local NGO in Guatemala.

MEXICO - Sustainable Rural Development and Environmental Conservation
For several years EPIC has been encouraging and sharing ideas and technical support with three small Mexican NGO’s working in sustainable rural development and environmental conservation in the State of Tlaxcala. This spring EPIC executive director Paul McKay visited the Vicente Guerrero Rural Development Program, CAMPESINO, and CEDUAM (Centro de Educación Ambiental y Acción Ecológico) to discuss our continuing inter-institutional collaboration.

In March EPIC paid the travel costs, food and lodging for a learning tour to the Museum of Arts and Popular Traditions of Tlaxcala, Mexico, by six FUNDAMARCOS board members.The visit to this living museum in Mexico has provided the foundation members with an extremely valuable shared experience in the design and functioning of a cultural center. The visit will serve as an important reference point the development of the foundation’s Casa de Cultura Maya which is to be developed in Antigua, Guatemala.s.

USA - Arthur Marks Benefit Concert
EPIC Joins Hands in Co-Sponsoring Benefit Concert Concert for Arthur Marks On July 12, 1997, EPIC joined hands with the Bethel College and Newton, KS, communities as a co-sponsor for a benefit concert for the community’s beloved tenor Arthur Marks. In June, when Professor of Music Kathryn Kasper heard that Arthur had been diagnosed with cancer and would require extensive and costly medical treatment beyond his financial resources, she began ringing the phones of vocal and instrumental alumni of Bethel College. The outpouring of support for the benefit concert by performers demonstrated the love and esteem of Arthur Mark’s fellow musicians. The list of performers for the benefit included the assistant conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Chicago Youth Symphony, a professional actress from Colorado, graduate students in music from the University of Kansas and Wichita State University, director of orchestras for Newton Public Schools, and regional dramatic and musical performers. Honoring their teacher was the Maize High School Select Choir. Arthur teaches music at Maize High School and Hesston College and is the minister of music at the Hillside Christian Church, Wichita, KS. Adding to the performance were musical numbers by the Mid-Kansas Symphony Orchestra and Bethel College Gospel Choir. The moving grand finale was “A Medley for Arthur” arranged especially for this event. The medley included selections from Rent, Carousel, West Side Story, Cinderella, King and I, Oklahoma, Godspell, Susannah, and Secret Garden.

EPIC was able to pass on to Arthur a total of $15,919 which represented 351 donations. EPIC is proud to have been a partner in this effort to support a community effort of social justice to provide the right to health care.

Fundraising
Very encouraging assistance in the fundraising arena came from former EPIC board member Robert Hinshaw. Robert, together with his wife Linda, is owner and director of Hinshaw Tours. Robert leads educational tours focused on learning about the culture and environment in the countries visited. In October in his annual newsletter to 350 of his international travelers, Robert made a recommendation for donations to FUNDAMARCOS’ Casa de la Cultura Maya through EPIC. He included a “History and Mission” statement for the Fundación Agri-Cultura Marcos Orozco and a description of the “Needs and Issues Addressed”. The Executive Director is eager to help other EPIC members with logistical support for raising funds for EPIC projects.

EPIC Headquarters Office Moves to Allenspark, Colorado
Following the death of EPIC founder, Father Thomas Cowley on November 1, 1988, Dr. Loren Raymond, EPIC President, moved the EPIC library and office from Johnson City, TN, to an office in Boone. This gave Loren immediate access to the records of EPIC and Father Thomas facilitating a 28 month ordeal of establishing the Thomas Cowley Endowment in behalf of EPIC as stipulated by Father Thomas in his bequest. In order to accomplish that feat, Loren worked with three lawyers in Johnson City, Elizabethon and Boone, consolidated over 19 savings accounts, and carried on correspondence with Father Thomas’ family members and Dominican order in France. Upon the successful completion of this formidable and time consuming task, the Endowment assets came to a total of $209,085.46. At the March 9, 1991, meeting of the Board of Directors, Loren suggested to the Board that in order to carry on the day to day operations of EPIC an executive director be appointed. The Board took Loren’s recommendation and named Paul McKay as the new Executive Director of EPIC.

From March 1991, through July 1997, the office of EPIC was either located at the Kansas Peace Institute on the Bethel College Campus or at the home of the EPIC members Paul & Mary McKay. In August the EPIC headquarters moved to Allenspark, Colorado, with the McKays. Our office is now located at 8,300 feet in the beautiful Colorado Rockies. It is a great place in which to appreciate the beauty of God’s creation and our responsibility for being good stewards thereof.

P. O. Box 433
Allenspark, C0 80510
tel. 303-747-2059
fax 303-747-2085

The Ecumenical Project for International Cooperation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting peace, human rights, and sustainable development through both action and education and by encouraging cooperation among organizations involved in these areas.